What they have in common is a sense of process, work, fiddling around with pieces till they fit. It's a state of mind: starting something just to start, working at it not sure where it will end up, getting things down to have something to work with, going in a direction just to see what will happen. It's addictive and delicious and exhausting and relaxing. It can be very very hard to get into, too.

If you're stuck on a problem, hitch a ride on any one of these thought processes. You'll likely get into the right state of mind to start finding solutions.

And, of course, I wanted to play too! So here's my contribution:

This is a design I did as a commission, which didn't work for the client, so I kept it. The way I usually work is to carve a block, ink it and start plonking it on fabric to find a pattern I like. This digital thing was a bit new, so I apologize for the lack of elegance.

The client wanted flowers and petals and stems, so I drew this:

See the dots? That's a blockprinter trying to work with intangible pixels; how else to line up the repeats?

I tiled the drawing. Hmm, a bit boring.

Rows going the other way. Still too stiff.

Ok, what about flipping every other one? Better.

But if this is going to be a linocut, what will the block look like? I could have 2 blocks, and print them alternately, but that's a recipe for disaster because I'll muddle them up. 4 repeats per block? That's a big block, not so easy to ink consistently. But now I'm thinking about creating the 'unit repeat' instead of the overall design, and that leads to this:

And suddenly I'm looking at the negative space, and the pattern the stems make.Here it is printed, in a slightly different alignment. (I hadn't noticed that I'd shifted it in printing; it's more open and undulating, but I've lost that 'crossy' thing the flowers were doing.)

I think I'll have to try printing it more tightly, because if I add colour to the flowers, the X shapes start to jump out.

And then I could add random stuff around the flowers, and then....

This might just be my first 2-colour print. Time to carve a block, I think.

This is great!I find (when preparing a piece for screen printing) that by taking a piece of paper (the total size of your 1 repeat)and folding the left and right sides together and later the top and bottom sides and drawing the design over the meeting points of top and bottom/left and right makes an easy continuous pattern. You're really left with the centre square to fill with a design.You can then scan it in and play with Illustrator, etc.

So pretty Jesse! Your artistry is awe-inspiring. I like how the detail of your element lends itself to a simple layout - and it's perfect! I like the bottom one, with the random filler. Oh, and 2-color?? That would be gorgeous blocked out. Thanks for sharing!

I've been meaning to say how nice it is to see how you came up with the final design. thanks for sharing; I'm about to finally start screen printing some of my designs, and the repeats scare me a bit. you make it look easier :)